Ben OsborneLabour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, has been quoted as saying that the riots that hit the UK last summer wouldn’t have happened had parents been stricter on discipline, including smacking.
The former Education Minister said that if working-class parents were able to employ victorian style discipline on their children, and physically deter them from becoming involved in gang culture, then the looting and civil disturbances could have been avoided.
Talking on a radio interview Lammy said “Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour government, saying: ‘You guys stopped us being able to smack our children’.” He has however since backed down from these comments telling The Guardian that his intention was not to suggest that the riots were caused by parents not being able to smack their children, “It would be quite wrong to suggest that smacking or not smacking was in any way responsible for the riots,” he said, “There were many, many issues examined by a range of reports including the Guardian and LSE.”
The contradictory comments by Lammy have again fuelled the debate on the physical disciplining of children. Parents had, before the introduction of the Children’s Act in 2994, been able to use “reasonable chastisement” to punish their children with any contentious cases decided by a judge. The Children’s Act narrowed the definition and specified that parents were able to smack their children as long as they did not cause a “reddening of the skin”. In cases where the parents were deemed to have gone to far, social workers are to make the call.
In a BBC interview Lammy admitted to smacking his three- and five-year-old sons and raised concerns that working-class parents feel that they are not able to physically discipline their children saying, “The law used to allow ‘reasonable chastisement’, but current legislation stops actions that lead to a reddening of the skin – which for a lot of my non-white residents isn’t really an issue.
“When this was first raised with me I was pretty disparaging. But I started to listen. These parents are scared to smack their children and paranoid that social workers will get involved and take their children away.”
Lammy believes that it is easier for middle class parents to discipline their children and that woking class parents are too afraid that social services will become involved if they physically discipline their children in a bid to stop them becoming involved in gang culture and violent crime. He said, “Middle-class families can find all sorts of ways to handle children, by putting them in tennis classes or using traditional private schools.” Whereas he believes that working-class parents feel they are unable to issues discipline effectively, “Parents in my constituency are frightened that if they smack their children, a social worker will come knocking at the door.
“When the law changed in 2004, it was to deal with people who abused their children. The law at that time left judges to determine if a parent had used reasonable chastisement. Under the new arrangements it is left to social workers.
“Single mums raising boys feel there are things that happen outside their front door – drugs, gangs or knife crime – where smacking is one of the things they should be able to do. They are confused about the law. We should allow 99 per cent of parents to determine how to help their children understand boundaries and learn right from wrong.”
Should parents feel free to physically punish their children or are there more effective ways to discipline them? Does violence counter-act violence, and has smacking now become a class issue? The debate is sure to continue.
